


you can't brace yourself when the time comes (you just have to roll with the blast)

by emi_rose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assisted Suicide, Dementia, Gen, Heavy Angst, Mercy Killing, Terminal Illnesses, angus is lucretia's kid, background ensemble cast - Freeform, don't fuck around with these tags y'all, i guess technically there is some comfort, that's the main bit of context here, this is some heavy heavy shit, with a little soupcon of comfort at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 15:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20117359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emi_rose/pseuds/emi_rose
Summary: static spreads. a difficult choice is made. lucretia dies.





	you can't brace yourself when the time comes (you just have to roll with the blast)

**Author's Note:**

> Please be mindful of this warning, dear reader. This fic contains detailed depictions/discussion of dementia, terminal illness, suicide, and euthanasia. Do not read this shit if you do not want to or don't feel like you can healthily engage with those themes. I _wrote_ it and there are days where I couldn't handle reading this.

Lucretia watches the assemblage of her family gather. She rocks quietly in the chair Magnus made for her, decades ago. 

Here is: the first time all seven of them have been in the same room since they saved the world, despite her best efforts.

Here is: Carey, herself elderly, comforting Magnus as he dies, all too aware that she and her wife will soon follow.

Here is: the impossible dénouement of their personal infinity, the beginning of the end.

When someone leaves the world, those exits are not made equal. Some are furious and spiteful, cut down in a blaze of glory. Some are preventable, stupid: a cocktail too many; an experiment ill-advised and ill-executed. And some are a quiet sigh, willingly traversing the boundary to what lies beyond the material. They are rare, and they are a gift. For Magnus, it is well-earned. 

\-------

Lucretia's endless numbered days tick down in unknown quantity, diminishing steadily with her. Losing Magnus, though, unmoors her from her solid bedrock, her concrete memories fizzling into nothing, limestone against vinegar.

Angus comes by more often now, sometimes with Lena's daughter in tow while her grandparents gallivant around the world reaping souls and whatnot. Lucretia can't remember the baby's name (Ella? Lillian? Julia?). It's funny, the first time, and Angus laughs as he reminds her that _the_ _baby is Leah, remember, Mama, Lena and Leah, they rhyme, yeah?_ It is a harbinger of Lucretia's future, and he refuses to acknowledge it. Not her, not someone so smart, someone known for her words. It's impossible.

And yet.

She loses the thread of conversations as the months wear on, a barely perceptible decline plucking her faculties slowly, death by a thousand cuts. Her glory days - fraught as they were - are a refuge for her mind, still clear and sparkling in the past as the present recedes in a foggy mirror. 

Summer turns to winter and summer again, and the transcendental hope that  _ everything will be okay _ proves itself a mirage, glimmering out of reach.

When people come to visit, Lucretia asks who they are, if they're related, if they remember her. They always do. She confabulates, says she remembers, smiles that sparkling vivacious grin that hasn't managed to age, and tells a story from worlds ago. Time loses its direction.

As the seasons turn again, more people collect themselves in Lucretia's little cottage. They cook, laugh, and reminisce, careful to keep the mood light. Even so, Magnus's absence is felt, keenly.

They are six where they should be seven, calm where they should be angry. Even Taako's fury has cooled in the face of the profound irony Lucretia faces. He flits in and out of her house, drawn to her in her twilight, repulsed by the shell she's become, torn between anger at who she used to be and at the disease that ripped at her mind where she, at least, dissected carefully. He and Lup cook in Lucretia's cozy kitchen, old favorites that spark her memory and make things seem almost normal for a moment.

\----

Good days become more infrequent, bad days become good as worse days take their place. There's an unspoken rotation of people who keep an eye on Lucretia around the clock, now that she's liable to wander off and get lost, to forget to eat until she faints (not that anything's changed, there), to be afraid and alone. 

She starts to ask after Magnus every day, and for weeks, no one has the courage or the cruelty to tell her the truth. Angus hedges and tells her he's gone to visit someone named Julia, who Lucretia doesn't recognize. Barry sighs heavily and says he's stepped out for awhile, but he'll be back later. 

Lup arrives with a case of cider flavored with honey. She sets it on the counter and Lucretia stares at it, eyes wide and quivering. 

"This is Magnus's favorite," Lucretia announces, more lucid in this moment than Lup's seen her in months. 

Lup laughs gently, masking the attendant grief. "Yes, it was, wasn't it?"

"When will he be back?"

"He's dead, baby," Lup says, carefully. There is a dark silence for a moment.

"Who?" Lucretia turns, face blank. 

\----

By the time Lucretia's made up her mind, she's too far gone. She knows that she is more than just infirm, that she is losing herself and is doomed to a slow, painful decline. Despite knowing this, she is incapable of helping herself, trapped in her own failing mind and forced to watch. The moments she doesn't remember are kinder, and they stretch over the days like taffy.

A rare spark of lucidity comes one quiet afternoon. Angus sits on the overstuffed chair in Lucretia's sitting room, reading a novel and sipping the tea she still remembers how to make. Lucretia doesn't read anymore, hasn't since she lost the thread of a story she'd read a hundred times. She sits and knits the same pattern that is written in the fiber of her being, hands gnarled yet still dexterous, working on autopilot.

Lucretia's eyes are bright with fear and understanding. "Angus?" she asks, voice tremulous, afraid and aware in a way Angus hasn't seen her in months. 

He jolts up from his reading, jumps to his feet. "Yes? You okay, mom?"

She reaches her hands out to him, intense as she was when she first hired him decades ago. "I can't live like this anymore," she says, eyes sparkling with tears. "Please, Angus, I need you to kill me."

Angus takes a sharp breath in. "No," he whispers, and he's eleven again, with none of the bravado or confidence of the world's greatest boy detective, he's just scared. His dark eyes well with tears and barely meet Lucretia's clouded ones. "I can't," he says, inaudible to even himself. It's more a prayer than anything else. 

No one answers.

Lucretia squeezes his hands and furrows her brow. "Have I ever told you about the Arcaneum?" she asks, voice cracked with emotion she's not sure how to process.

"Tell me, mama," Angus says, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

\---

Angus doesn't know what compels him to take a sphere to Bottlenose Cove, but when he knocks on Merle's door, it feels right. And he's lucky, he supposes, that Merle's even home and not gallivanting around the wilderness with his Extreme Teen Adventurers. It feels like the hand of Lady Fate, if he's being honest. 

He sits down at Merle's table and accepts a glass of whatever weird beer he's been brewing lately. It's good, unusual, herbaceous and intense, and Angus tries  _ very _ hard not to think about how Merle's relationship with plants could have influenced this drink. 

Merle looks through Angus with one piercing blue eye, waiting for him to spill his guts, irritatingly patient. Angus fidgets, takes a deep breath, takes a drink to stall for another moment and maybe steady himself.

"Merle. My mom..." he takes a deep breath and tries to sound more sure than scared. "She asked me to do something, asked me to, to  _ kill  _ her? I don't, I, I can't, I..." he trails off, nose flaring in an attempt to quell his tears.

Merle sighs. "Oh, Angus. She loves you so, so much," he says, carefully, more honest than Angus has seen him in years. "Ya know, kiddo, there are...good deaths. I would know," he says with a laugh, dozens of deaths on his record, some better than others.

Angus laughs with him, despite himself. 

"And there are ugly ones. There's times where you have to look at yourself and do somethin' you don't think you can, or something that scares you, because it's  _ right _ . Because, ya see, someone needs you, and ya can't look away from that. Ya just can't."

Angus draws a shaky breath. "Did you ever -- not exactly this, I mean, but back then, did you ever have to..." he can't finish the thought, not now, not yet.

Merle laughs, more gentle this time. "Did we ever have to mercy-kill someone? Shit, sure, a few times. One year, before the whole Parley thing, your ma had to kill me, and it was the kindest thing anybody ever did." He puts his small hands over Angus's and smiles. "Sometimes, the meaning of love is hurting someone a little to save them from hurting a lot."

"Thanks, Merle," Angus says, resisting the urge that lingers decades later to call him  _ sir _ . 

"And, kid, don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

\---

When Angus arrives home, his heart has decided, and he's never been more grateful to have learned to kill with a single word from Barry. He never imagined that his first time using it would be on his own mother. 

He procrastinates, seduced by good days that he knows can't last. He makes sure that everyone who loves Lucretia comes to visit, to say goodbye without knowing it. And then, Lucretia doesn't recognize him, he can't jar her memory, can't force her to remember, and it's clear. It's time.

He sits next to Lucretia, takes her hands in his, and whispers a quiet word. Her eyes go dark, her breath sighs one last time, and Angus feels a profound relief. 

When someone leaves the world, those exits are not made equal. Some are violent and sudden, a young spirit ripped from the world too soon. Some are excruciating and slow, taking a person piece by piece. And some are a mercy, an act of desperate love and sacrifice. 

It is the mercy Lucretia asked for, the profound grace of the closed circle, the returning home.

Angus holds his mother's still body in his arms, and weeps. He has spared her the suffering she inflicted on her closest family, spared her the fate she feared most, given her the last, greatest gift he had to give. He lays her out, tenderly washes her body, and shrouds her in the quilt she slept under. He tells no one what he's done, and Merle, true to his word, keeps his secret.

Lup is visible to Lucretia, now, not the grim specter of death, but resplendent nonetheless, no longer obscured by the haze of the years. Incorporeal as she is, Lucretia can't weep as she takes Lup's outstretched hand. For the first time in decades, Lucretia is truly at a loss for words, awash in the permanent efficacy of the grace that she has been inexplicably awarded. She understands, truly, the redemption she has been offered, freely given.

\----

Lup leads Lucretia through the familiarly wobbly boundary between the planes for the last time. Lucretia feels the pull of the astral sea, tempting her gasping mind with the mercy of oblivion. Stronger, though, is the way Lup tugs on her, leading her towards an island, oasis in the endless sea of souls. She feels the pull of something stronger, now, another intimately familiar soul, drawing her. Lup looks back, neither Orpheus nor Job, and smiles.

The island is dominated by a little house, shining with warm candlelight, a beacon in that wine-dark sea. They sail closer, distance magnified and compressed in a disorienting swirl. "I think you'll like it here," Lup says, voice thick with emotion.

"I suspect I will," Lucretia says, full to bursting with love. 

"You can stay as long as you need to, you know, not forever, but our Queen has been quite generous," Lup says. She gives Lucretia an incorporeal hug and opens a rift in spacetime. "I'll see you soon."

Lucretia nods, tears spilling from her eyes, and knocks on the door, an unnecessary gesture of politeness that she can't help but execute. Magnus flings the door open and wraps her up in a bear hug. Julia is close behind, greeting her with an exuberance that makes Lucretia wonder what exactly Magnus has been telling her over the years. The house smells phenomenal, like the home she left behind.

Johann follows close behind and licks her face as soon as she's released from Magnus's arms. Julia and Magnus laugh at his antics, and Lucretia's heart swells with the knowledge that she is finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the mountain goats matthew 25:21, which i basically blasted on loop while writing this. thank you to kith and tara for letting me flex my writing muscles with what i do best (tragedy/killing poor lucretia for the 30th time), to myles for gifting me angus, to blue for screaming at me and letting me scream right back. find me on tumblr at @emi--rose if you want, and please leave a comment if you liked this! or if i ripped your soul out, whichever. :)


End file.
